The Breakdown

A daily analysis of macroeconomics, bitcoin, geopolitics and big picture power shifts, hosted by Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw. The Breakdown is part of Blockworks.

Business
Investing
1726
What's behind the BTC price crash? / Does WeWor...
Bitcoin (and the rest of the markets) absolutely cratered yesterday, with BTC dropping from nearly $10k to under $8k before resetting a bit. Is it Bakkt backlash? Bitmex margin calls? Or a fat load of who the hell knows? Speaking of crashes, Adam...
20 min
1727
Bakkt launch flop or fly? / Kik kicks the bucke...
Much hyped Bakkt has launched, but the volume is...less than massive. What should we think about it? Is it a sign of failure; a sign that there simply isn't demand from institutions; or was this always the likely launch pattern? Meanwhile, in the...
23 min
1728
Narrative Watch - Meme Warfare: 'Bitcoin fixes ...
Crypto markets are driven by memes. In point of fact, all markets are driven by memes and narratives, but emergent markets like crypto ratchet it up. In this Narrative Watch, we go meta to look at the state of meme warfare, going deep on two memes of...
23 min
1729
Regulatory clap back / Why co's should fund ope...
Major regulatory and law enforcement clap back as SEC targets ICOBox (who would have believed that a company named ICOBox wasn't completely above board?) and an early Ethereum advisor is arrested for extortion. Get your breath back after that one,...
24 min
1730
Fed cuts & repo / Binance.US's BNB surprise / B...
The FED has pumped the equivalent of half of Bitcoin's market cap into the markets over the last couple days in what some are likening to a TAF 2.0. We discuss why this, plus today's anticipated rate cuts, matter for Bitcoin. Binance US launched today...
21 min
1731
Hashgraph & alt season dreams / Privacy coin de...
Hashgraph is live and alts are in the green. Is it alt season or just wishful thinking? Over in the world of security tokens, NBA players are tokenizing their contracts and startups that wanted to lead the STO revolution are pivoting to help existing...
20 min
1732
Narrative Watch: Bitcoin is Political
As this was being recorded, Facebook was being grilled by 26 central banks about their plans for Libra. Last week, France and Germany said they'd block the project and were exploring their own digital currencies. Libra head David Marcus felt enough...
18 min
1733
CLASH! The State vs. Crypto | BTC futures & DeF...
The clash of global state power and crypto seems more inevitable than ever. Germany joins France in declaring that they will block Libra (all the while being interested to explore their own digital currency). We look at not only the news, but what...
17 min
1734
QE is good for Bitcoin / Binance US opens next ...
More qualitative easing out of Europe means more "look at them they're doing it we should be doing it!" from Trump means more "Bitcoin solves this" memes. Binance is geoblocking users but next week opens up Binance.US - a regulated exchange with 6...
16 min
1735
Coinbase exploring IEOs / Trump Tweets For Nega...
At Invest: Asia in Singapore today, Coindesk's heat of institutional sales in Asia hinted that the company is exploring IEOs, but wouldn't comment further. As he is wont to do, Trump got everyone talking by ratcheting up his pressure on the Fed to go...
16 min
1736
Bitcoin bank-ification / Do airdrops work? / Ap...
A new product from Gemini which allows custody customers to trade without moving their coins out of cold storage has sparked discussions about bankification that go all the way back to the beginnings of bitcoin. Meanwhile, Stellar announces a ~$120m...
19 min
1737
Narrative Watch: Impatience, Greed or Fear? Wha...
Despite Bakkt opening warehousing, BTC holding strong around $10k, and many new announcements, it's hard not to view the mood around crypto Twitter as lethargic. Is it simple impatience and the wrong time preference? Is it reflective of a recognition...
15 min
1738
Libra vs. China: The Global Digital Money Wars ...
One of the most important global economic battles of our time is the battle to create new standards for global digital money. While bitcoin has been quietly building its case for the last decade, the story of the last few months has been all about the...
12 min
1739
The Great BTC-Alt Divergence / Epic Rap Battles...
BTC dominance is over 70%, and the gap between its performance and everything else may be accounting for the strange dissonance between 3x BTC price growth in 2019 and the serious gloomy pallor on display on crypto Twitter. We look at that divergence...
16 min
1740
Special Edition: Summer Recap & Fall Prediction...
To celebrate the official end of summer and beginning of fall, I asked 15 top crypto VCs, entrepreneurs and content creators including Jill Carlson, Ari Paul, Kyle Samani, Marty Bent and more 4 questions: What did we learn this Summer? What are your...
19 min
1741
Narrative Watch: The Game of Coins & The Battle...
In the game of coins, you [replace the USD as the world's reserve currency or at least shore up your sovereign currency's position in the new global mix] or you die.  Over the last few months, we've seen China accelerate work on its digital...
13 min
1742
Stablecoin battles / Trade Wars & Safe Havens /...
Libra Association on the verge of losing members? That's the report from FT as members get spooked by EU antitrust proceedings. Over in the trade war, Trump ratchets up the rhetoric against China, and we explore both how it might drive Chinese...
17 min
1743
Terrorism, Sanctions & Global Opioid Rings: The...
What do Palestinian bitcoin brokers, bitcoin rewards via hangover deliveries and a Russian spy scandal have to do with one another? It's all on today's 3@3. First, we look at the return of the crypto crime FUD narrative, with the specter of terrorism...
21 min
1744
EU antitrust action on Libra / SEC dings ICO ra...
Well that didn't take long. The European Union has already started looking into antitrust action on Facebook around Libra. In other regulatory news, US Sec of State Mike Pompeo says crypto should be regulated like SWIFT, India central bank fights for...
19 min
1745
Dovey Wan on Binance's Venus / Snowden on surve...
Binance is pursuing a strategy that is a bottoms-up "belt and road" alternative to Facebook's top down global cryptocurrency Libra. VC Dovey Wan explores that strategy, and why their Chinese announcement was more aggressive than their English. We also...
19 min
1746
Narrative Watch: Binance, Venus and the coming ...
Binance blew open the doors on the global battle for stablecoin supremacy today when they announced Venus - a project that seems to combine some aspects of permissioned corporate chains with central bank digital currencies (aka convenient surveillance...
12 min
1747
The 11 Archetypes Of People You Need To Follow ...
Bitcoin and Crypto Twitter are wild, weird places. On this special "sorry I'm traveling, can't give you the news" edition of 3@3, I provide a guide to 11 key types of people that you should be following for your well-rounded Twitter...
14 min
1748
Ponzi scam selling, Hong Kong protest bank runs...
Why number go down? That's all anyone was asking as BTC plunged below $10k, a line that, according to Hodlonaut, we'd never cross again. Was it Ponzi scam selling in China or something less sinister? Either way, there was a bit of snark about a safe...
17 min
1749
The SEC's ICO cleanup / China's convenient surv...
What is dead may yet still die. At least, that seems to be the case as the SEC goes one by one through its list of unregistered securities offerings and outright scams. This week it was one unregistered SAFT settlement and one emergency lawsuit...
14 min
1750
Crypto Daily 3@3 - 8.13 | Argentina economic tu...
After surprise election results, the Argentine economy tumbled. The stock market fell 48%, and the peso fell some 25-30% against USD. What is the role of crypto in this type of economic black swan event, if any? I asked MakerDAO's Mariano Conti, an...
23 min